Being With Blood
There are so many ways to be with our blood. How we catch - or don’t - the uterine lining shed each cycle is a core strand shaping our experience of menstruation.
You may remember that my journey into conscious menstruation began when I was in the wild - far away from any stores and without language to ask to borrow products - and wondered into what my ancestors did when they bled. I heard an invitation to bleed without interference … to let my blood flow … onto my body and onto the earth. This unfurling felt like a deeply radical act, one that was both primal and that linked me to the ways of the ancients, my ancestors. This dismantling expectations of discreetly hiding and handling an experience that is one of great power and of attunement to the sacred, became a source of deep blessing for me.
In this lesson, we consider our experiences and desires around how we be with our blood.
How have you caught - or not - your blood? Why did you first start using whatever method you did? Why did you first start using the method you use now? Which ways of being with your blood have worked well for you? Which have been challenging?
Among my community of conscious bleeders, some have a priority of letting blood flow without obstruction. Others have a priority of catching blood to use for ritual. Others weave back and forth between multiple ways, depending on the moment. There are merits to many ways of being with blood. We’ll first explore blood flow and then we’ll explore blood catchment.
Letting Blood Flow (And Still Catching It)
I find that letting my blood flow out of my body is an important element in allowing my body and psyche to release. The physical process of uterine lining shedding can be deeply supportive of an energetic release or grief each month. Whether or not I feel grief around not conceiving, whether or not I have a desire to conceive, the physical act of release and letting go can be a mirror for the loss of potential life. For some bleeding bodies, that release includes literal grief around not conceiving. For others, the focus is the energy of release from whatever is being shed from the previous month.
There are different categories of catchment for folks who let their blood flow out of their bodies. Letting blood flow rather than using internal catchment is necessary, or highly preferred, for some bodies, which actively don’t want anything inserted intravaginally when bleeding. When considering working with external catchment - pads or menstrual underwear - many folks consider environmental impact, effectiveness, ease and physical comfort. Menstrual underwear (like Thinx) or cloth pads are not only environmentally beneficial but also allow you to capture your blood for ritual use or feeding plants / the earth. Blood caught in this way, rather than by disposable pads, can be gathered for pouring by submerging the pads or panties in a large mason jar of water to release the water. If you are trying this for the first time, do be sure to offer / work with the blood water within 24-36 hours, as sitting longer than that it gets highly pungent. If this way of gathering blood works well for you, you might designate - and decorate - a large mason jar for blood cloth soaking each month.
Free Bleeding
You might choose to take the process a step further and explore free bleeding, letting blood flow onto a towel, onto your body, or onto the earth.
One way to begin the practice of free bleeding is to place a towel or two beneath you in bed - night or day - and bleed onto them. While this may seem edgy at first, remember that you can wash the towels, and your body, when you get out of bed!
If you try this and find it resonant, you might also consider ways you can free bleed around your home, or even if out and about.
Free bleeding entered the news a few years ago when marathon runner Kiran Gandhi free bleed during the 26.5 mile london marathon, and visibly bled on her running costume. In subsequent interview with People magazine, she spoke about her choice: “We are still deeply uncomfortable with a very normal and natural process …women’s bodies don’t exist for public consumption.”
Kohenet Ariel Vegosen, a vocal advocate of free bleeding, often shows up in ritual circle with a towel beneath them to catch their blood, or simply walks around with no blood catchment, and bleeds freely on their clothes. They are deeply commited to deshaming the bleeding experience, and speak often about the power and goodness they friend in free bleeding. Ariel says “Free bleeding is the most liberating joyous experience. It puts me in touch with my body and the earth. It is healing, spiritual, radical and redemptive. For so long, I have struggled with bleeding - from cramps to societal negativity. Free bleeding is my ownership of my body, my love of self, and me not being afraid of all that I am. I highly recommend that any body that bleeds tries it. I also want to see more of us doing it. I want to see blood on our pants, shorts, skirts, whatever we wear to be ourselves. I want all people of all genders who bleed to be free and liberated in the experience. This is our bodies and our choices and I am thankful for all my free bleeding experiences.”
One of my primary menstrual rituals growing up was “the butt check” - asking a friend, “Did I stain my pants?” and turning around for them to take a look. Asking someone to do the butt check with me was an indicator of trust, and also a subtle way of building community & intimacy, weaving a web of support. Yet it also anchored the shame and need to hide my blood. Free bleeding is a reclamatory practice, bleeding without hiding or shame.
Bleeding On the Earth
A particularly potent practice in the realm of letting blood flow and free bleeding is bleeding on the earth. Bleeding on the earth is an offering practice that awakens our connection with the earth where we are.
I had a formative learning about this practice a few years into my conscious menstrual awareness, when I moved to Oregon to create a bleeding space on land where an intentional community was based. I set up the bleeding space - created a circle of stones around it, and consecrated the space with my own blood, prayers, songs and intentions. A couple of months later, I traveled away from the land, and didn’t bleed for the many months of my traveling. Five months later, when I returned to that land, my blood dropped the instant I set foot on that land. This was an incredibly powerful teaching for me about the power of bleeding on the land, and to be clear in intent and offering. When we bleed on the earth we are feeding the soil and making an offering that is both physical and energetic. We are awakening and activating a connection between us and the sacred, and specifically the earth / spirits of that place.
If you do bleed on the earth, be clear internally and as you make the offering if you are making an offering of gratitude or of initiating connection. Activating a relationship in which you intend to offer blood regularly in the same place holds a distinct energy from offering blood in a particular place in any given moment. Coventental offerings and discreet offerings each bring great gifts. If you can, be clear in your energetic or literal communication about your intentions for the offering.
Some folks new to bleeding on the earth have practical questions about how it works / easy ways to do it. I’ve heard so many folks say “I can’t just sit on the earth or a stone for hours! How does it work?” While you might want to do that as a slow ritual, it’s not the way of most folks I know. The easiest entry point I’ve found is to pee on the earth during a heavy flow time, to support blood also making its way to the earth. Another simple way is to share a little blood with the earth by putting a finger/hand at the edge of your vaginal canal and placing some blood on the earth.
Folks who do sit for a bit on the earth sometimes enjoy wearing a skirt or sarong / wrap and just letting their blood flow onto the earth or not as it does. I like to sing and to speak aloud a gratitude prayer to the earth as I make blood offering.
Blood Cups
Another way to catch blood is with a menstrual cup - popular ones include the Keeper or Diva Cup. Most menstrual cups are made of rubber or silicone. Some folks use them because of the environmental and economic benefit of not using disposables. Some folks prefer to have internal catchment rather than catching blood externally or free bleeding. Some folks use them because they want to collect blood for ritual use. Blood cups can be an awesome way to directly collect blood for ritual use - whether offering to the earth or plants, placing on altar, anointing the body, or making art with.
Kohenet Rae Abileah speaks with excitement about the power of using a menstrual cup. “All of a sudden instead of using these toxic disposable products that you have to pay money for every month, I was using a cup that fit inside that I could actually remove and see the blood in space and time in one place. [I could ask questions like] “How dark is it?” How light is it? How thick is it? How fluid is it? What’s the texture? I don’t have any awareness of that when I’m using a pad or a tampon. It’s just like a color stained on some weird fibery glassy thing. That feels like a big part of [the power in using a menstrual cup].
Menstrual cups are not for everyone — for some folks having something inside of them while bleeding is uncomfortable or not supportive. If you do want to explore using a menstrual cup, ask your body what it needs. Initiate a conversation - perhaps even asking permission - to insert a cup while you are bleeding, and closely track your body’s response.
*A note on internal blood catchment* Tampons pose a risk of toxic shock syndrome. Standard tampons are bleached with chlorine and even organic tampons are often found to have traces of chlorine. When I check in with body about tampons, I get a huge and resounding no. Tampons can pose serious health risks. I encourage you to try a different way.
Questions for Reflection
Consider your current methods for blood catchment. What is optimal or challenging about what you currently use? Is this working for you? Is there any particular practice of blood catchment or bleeding that you want to take on during your next cycle? Any new intentions, methods or practices you want to explore? What will help you try this on?
Communal Bleeding Spaces
You may have encountered a red tent or moon hut at a festival, spirituality event or some such gathering. Sacred spaces - convened as sanctuary for bleeding bodies and those who need deep rest - are often being created as powerful communal powertals. These have been (re)popularized in particular from Anita Diamant’s midrash / work of biblical fiction The Red Tent. Red tents and moon huts can sometimes be understood as an adaptation, offshoot or appropriation of cultures where moon huts have been in existence since ancient times. And communal gathering spaces for bleeding ones is a powerful practice. Being disconnected to coming together as menstruants is an outgrowth of colonialist and oppressive practice which has shamed blood and disconnected peoples from land-based and animist traditions. From where I sit, it is important to not romanticize or wrongly attribute practices, while also being deeply committed to reclaiming the possibilities of sacred communal gathering that can be deeply healing and supportive to bleeding bodies, and by extension, the wider communities.
Ethiopian Jewish communities have a longstanding practice of sitting in menstrual huts, known in Amharic as margam gogos, usually translated as ‘curse hut.’ During a collaboration between Kohenet and BINA - Beta Israel of North America (*Beta Israel is the preferred name for Ethiopian Jews) - BINA founder Beejay Barhany told stories of menstrual hut practice continuing even after Ethiopian Jewish / Beta Israel migration to Israel-Palestine. Beejay spoke of the wife of the chief Qes (*the qes is the Spiritual Leader of the Ethiopian Jewish community) who had a bleeding hut in the yard outside their home, even after moving to Israel-Palestine, but in time this became highly discouraged. While there has been a demand that the Beta Israel living in Israel-Palestine stop their menstrual customs, many in Beta Israel community have found adaptations to support the continuation of practice in a syncretic way, weaving traditional practices in a manner that is more easeful in Israeli society. Stories and adaptations among this community are chronicled in the article “Women and the Menstruation Huts: Variations in Preserving Purification Customs Among Ethiopian Immigrants” by Inbal Cicurel and Rachel Sharaby.
Reflect
As you consider your practices for letting you blood flow or gathering your blood, as you feel into possibilities of bleeding on the earth, or on you body, or not, what emerges for you as the ripe questions and the resonant possibilites? Feel welcome to share in the forum, or to reach out directly with questions, growing edges, stories of celebration, or whatever is emerging for